Scattered Thoughts

I just came across a blog post from my family blog in 2017 that is one of my favorites and I thought I would re-post it here. The chairs are gone (oddly salvaged from the trash pile by some college kids that were out witnessing one day...), but the lesson learned remains! Enjoy... The other day I was sitting at the table eating lunch with my son and he spilled his bowl of my soup on my chair. He was, ofcourse, not sitting in his high chair when he spilled this soup - where the tray would have caught and confined the liquid. No, he was sitting in my chair. The "cleanest" of the remaining chairs. I use the term clean in the loosest sense of the word. After all, the once white fabric is now a mixture of off-white, grayish-brown and colorful marker designs. The fabric on the seats has literally worn through from so much use. For a moment I hung my head in shame. Yuck. This is gross. I can not keep up - every time I clean, it gets dirtier. These seats look...

FOCUS. My word for 2019. Do one thing at a time, not 10. Finish what I'm doing instead of starting a million little projects and losing interest before they're complete. Put my phone down and focus on what is in front of me. FOCUS on those little faces and voices that are seeking my attention and make sure that they see my eyes instead of the back of electronics. FOCUS on putting the important things first and let the other things fall in place around them. FOCUS is my goal. Hopefully I don't get distracted.

At this stage of life, I spend a whole lot of time reading. Not the kind of books I prefer to read - which, given the choice, would always be fiction novels. No, during this period I spend most of my reading time with small cardboard books whose pages can't be torn by my three year old son (though he often finds a way to destroy even these seemingly indestructible treasures!). When I'm lucky, I get to read chapter books with my girls before bed - perhaps a Magic Treehouse, Friday Barnes or once in a while a true classic children's novel. It always gives me a giggle, though, when one of these child stories touches my adult heart, as I recently experienced with the silliest book. Sandra Boynton books are a favorite in this household. All three of my kids have been partial to them and I am, too - if I'm being honest. Not only do they make everyone smile, but they're easy to memorize and I can read (or recite) them when I'm half asleep in about three minutes each....

It's hard to believe that this year will be my 20 year high school class reunion. With all of the perks of modern technology and social media, my class has been discussing the details of it for several months now on a shared FB page. The other day the organizer posted a comment about wanting to honor those we have lost and she was trying to make sure she didn't miss anyone. She listed a list of names that just broke my heart. 15 people. Fifteen lives lost. Fifteen precious souls. Fifteen children, brothers, mothers and fathers. Even as the discussion took place, another life was lost - shot during a robbery. It is so crazy to think that these people are not here any more. It's even crazier to realize that some of these people played a big part in my teenage life and I didn't even realize that they had passed until I saw that post. We all move on, move away, branch out and live our lives... perhaps occasionally wondering whatever happened to our old friends, but you ju...

I have been wanting to create a blog for a while to try to keep up with all of the scattered thoughts that are running through my mind at a million miles per minute lately. It seems that the older I get, the faster they swirl and it tends to feel quite overwhelming until I am able to put them together into coherent thoughts or lessons for myself. Strike that... until God is able to bring them together for me to help me understand what He is teaching me. Since my memory is not what it used to be (likely due to lack of sleep and too many of these scattered thoughts), I thought it would be a good idea to document some of these lessons here. To borrow some words from Pastor Corey, "May this be a sacred space... a telling place..." where God will bless someone else's life in addition to how He blesses mine every day.  May this be a space for women to know that they are not alone... for them to find company and for hearts to find connection. May we find honesty and REAL toget...